


Bridges Falling Down

by Dr_MiriamLanning2



Category: Doctor Strange (2016), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Again, Complicated Relationships, F/M, Feelings Realization, Hurt/Comfort, Mild Language, Nightmares
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-05
Updated: 2021-02-05
Packaged: 2021-03-16 14:47:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,592
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29209104
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dr_MiriamLanning2/pseuds/Dr_MiriamLanning2
Summary: When Stephen Strange materializes in Christine's kitchen in desperate need of at least one band-aid, she is forced to confront the fact that he is not exactly the man she once knew- and her heart may not be as finished with him as she thought.
Relationships: Christine Palmer/Stephen Strange
Comments: 6
Kudos: 23





	Bridges Falling Down

_Clink_.

The bottom of my wine glass collided with the side of my sink and the sharp sound sliced through my silent kitchen. 

I winced, already suffering from a headache after a long and messy (it still astonished me sometimes just how much blood people had pumping through their veins) day, and sighed as I flipped up the handle of the sink. Cool water came drumming down into the stainless steel basin, and I waved the glass around underneath the flow. The sight of red swirling down the drain was all-too familiar, but after that day’s surgery, it reminded me of a job well done. I never minded washing the blood of someone who was going to live off of my hands. 

But the ones who didn’t make it… the blood seemed to almost burn through my gloves as it clung to the latex. I had never quite gotten used to it.

And truth be told, I didn’t think I ever would. 

With the glass clean, I tugged one of my brand-new towels from the drawer and quickly wiped away the drops of water before returning it to its spot in the cabinet. As I looked over the neat rows of clean dishes, I sighed in satisfaction. The whole kitchen was clean, and I could finally go to bed.

A gentle sparking noise whispered behind me, interrupting the silence.

Then the noise exploded. 

Too startled to scream, I jumped about a foot and whirled around to see what was left of my surely destroyed kitchen. But, after frantically scanning my table, chairs, counter, and hutch, I found nothing was out of place. 

Except for a tall figure dressed in deep blue and blood red standing in the middle of my kitchen looking for all the world like a building had just collapsed on him. 

“Sorry.”

He was breathing heavily, he had a stream of blood down one side of his face and a massive bruise swelling up the other side, and I could only watch in slight horror as the ungodly amount of dust coating his shoulders began to filter down onto my floor. 

“Jesus,” I finally gasped, my lungs having recovered from my shock. “Jesus, Stephen, you almost gave me a heart attack.”

“I said I was sorry,” he reminded me with a smirk, and I barely resisted the urge to chuck my dish towel at him. It had been weeks since I’d last seen him, as he’d whisked into the hospital and just as quickly whisked out. Magically appearing at the hospital with whatever weird crap he used was one thing; showing up at my house, unannounced, _completely filthy_ was another. 

However, the sight of him standing in my kitchen again, dirt or no dirt, sent an irritating and fluttering surge through my body. And as annoying as it was, the making-portals-from-different-dimensions-with-his-hands thing was actually pretty-

“You shouldn’t be here,” I snapped, aggressively folding the dish towel and stuffing it in the drawer. “You can’t just show up, out of nowhere, from God-knows-where-“

“I’m sorry-“

“- I could have been doing anything, my parents could have been here-“

“Christine-“

“- the hospital was pushing it, but this-“

“Christine, I’m sorry!” he nearly shouted, spreading his arms wide to gesture to my kitchen. “I was trapped inside a building that was collapsing and this was the first place I thought of, okay?” 

I blinked, taken aback. 

So I was right about the building falling on him. 

_Jesus_. 

His blue eyes were sparkling earnestly, his gesture was defensive, and his chest was still heaving from escaping a collapsing building- _a collapsing building_. We stood there for a moment, him trying to make me believe that it was an accident and not just out of spite, and me trying to convince him that I wasn’t buying it.

Problem was, I had bought it from the moment he… appeared. 

I pressed my lips together, desperate to hold on to something to be reasonably upset about. If I was being perfectly honest, there wasn't much. Then I thought of my tile and crossed my arms.

“I just cleaned my floors.”

He looked confused for a moment, then cast his eyes down at my once-spotless tile and noticed the little piles of dust that were gathering around his feet. Then, at that precise moment, his freaky cape decided to swirl away from his shoulders, showering dirt all over everything in a ten-foot radius before it came to rest hovering in the air a few feet behind him. 

Somehow the dirt still bugged me more than the _magic cape_. 

He looked up at me sheepishly, his eyes bright and his mouth failing to hide a grin. 

“Do I need to say it again?”

I rolled my eyes and picked up the stack of plates. “This is my house, Stephen-”

“Apartment-“

My words stopped, stemmed by his entirely unnecessary correction. My hands fell from their position across my chest and found the stack of plates. I gave them a good squeeze as I restrained myself. 

“Regardless, my home-“

“Look, again, I’m sorry,” he cut me off, taking a few steps forward and looking much more normal (if it was possible) without the gothic flare of the cloak. ”I’m sorry this was where my mind picked, I’m sorry I got you all wrapped up in this-“

“Oh no,” I cut him off, slamming down on the plates so hard down on the counter that it was a miracle they didn’t shatter. “Oh no, you haven’t gotten me wrapped up in anything! I have stayed out of- of whatever it is you do, whatever weird crap you’ve gotten yourself into, it has absolutely nothing- _nothing_ to do with me!” 

“You’re right- you’re right!” he agreed hurriedly, throwing his hand up in a defensive gesture and I tried not to focus on the fact that that was probably the first time he’d said those words to me- and he’d said it _twice_. “None of this has anything to do with you, you’re not involved, you’ve just cleaned me up once at the hospital- I get it. And I’m sorry for that, too- I know that was… an awkward experience for everyone.” 

He shook his head, no doubt recalling the stares and whispers and not to mention that one time he _flew out of his body_ \- 

“And I promise that I will try- really try- to not come here again. Promise. But in the meantime,” he took a breath, and raised up his other hand, “may I have a band-aid?”

My eyes were immediately torn from his potent expression of repentance to the small slit of red on his index finger- or at least that’s what I thought it was. It was hard to tell past the shaking- a physical tick that remained as a sign of his humanity despite his abilities. Then I looked back into his eyes, noting how blood from the cut on his forehead was about to drip into his left eye and how much dirt there was in his hair and how all the blood and dirt in the world could never even begin to diminish the spark in either of his eyes. 

My grip on the plates slackened. 

I took a deep breath. 

“One,” I held up a severe finger, “band-aid.”

This time he allowed himself to actually grin, and he strode around the counter with a slight limp. 

“Do I get to pick the size?”

“No.”

* * * *

“Jesus, how many layers are in this thing?”

It seemed like no matter how many strips of that weird dark blue cloth I pulled away, there was another one underneath. 

“I guess we’ll find out- I’ve kinda lost track,” he admitted with a shrug. 

I pulled on one particularly long strip around his forearm that seemed to be all one fancy braid, and I dropped it in a coil on the next to the growing pile of filthy fabric. He was perched on my counter (yes, that meant there was now dust on my counter, too) and it had unsurprisingly turned out he needed _much_ more than one band-aid. 

“Then how do you wash it?” The thought of all of these layers never seeing the light of day or some soap of any kind was unpleasant on many levels.

“It… gets clean,” he said vaguely, with a smile that he intended to annoy me, so I looked back at the new piece of fabric in my hand with dubious disgust and continued.

“Well, that one had blood on it, so I think we’re getting closer- ah, yes,” I announced, noticing the decent sized patch of drying blood on this particular tunic by his ribs. “This must be the last layer, so that makes… five.”

“Five layers,” he said to himself in astonishment, wincing as I gently pulled the fabric away from where it was becoming adhered to his wound. “It doesn’t feel like five layers.”

“It has to me,” I grumbled as my fingers skirted to the bottom of the thin fabric and began to lift. “Up and over.”

A sharp grunt pierced through his tunic as it obscured his head for a moment, and I inspected his chest quickly.

“Yep, there it is,” I told him cheerfully, helping him lift the shirt all the way off with slightly less care than I was capable of. A thick gash glared up at me just below his ribs and my eyes widened at the amount of bruising that clouded the skin around it. “Must have been one hell of a hit.”

I traced the edge of the bruising, pleased that the muscles underneath didn’t seem to be damaged. The red of his blood and the black of his bruise against his pale skin was a striking and intimidating contrast, but I breathed a sigh of relief. It was, simply, but a flesh wound. 

I also mentally noted that though it was apparent he didn’t get much sun wherever he was, he certainly got plenty of exercise. 

He glanced down at it, and shrugged minutely. “I’ve had worse.”

I stepped back to get a better look at it, also not missing the fact that he seemed reluctant to tell me how exactly he got the wound. Maybe it was from a sketchy criminal. Maybe it was something I wouldn’t understand. Maybe it was some giant monster that I didn’t really need to know about. Maybe he had tripped over his stupid cloak and landed on something sharp.

Part of me really wanted the latter to be true, if for no other reason than for the hilarious mental image. 

“Either way, that’s gonna need some gauze, and I think I have some…” I trailed off, turning to dig in my pantry for other medical supplies I kept on hand. The light illuminated my little basket with more band-aids, various pills and ointments, and- yes!- gauze. I grabbed the bundle, pausing to snatch the bottle of hydrogen peroxide and tube of Neosporin as I went. 

I turned back to find him daubing at his oozing wound with one of my brand new pristine white dish towels. 

“Stephen!” I cried, rushing forward and wanting with all of my being to snatch the towel out of his hand but also not wanting to injure the gash more. “You couldn't have waited like two more seconds?”

“Yes, but the blood dripping down my side couldn’t,” he said, not even bothering to look up as he slid the towel across his ribs. I winced as I watched the red liquid sink, probably irrevocably, into the soft white fibers. 

“I would have preferred it stain your pants,” I muttered, yanking open a drawer and pulling out a clean rag. Popping off the cap of the peroxide, I poured a generous amount on the rag and pressed it against the gash with absolutely more force than was necessary. 

He sucked in a breath, and I almost felt guilty. 

“Ow,” he said slowly in a low voice, and I looked up to find his eyes glittering mischievously. He knew he deserved it. 

Rather than fall into those eyes, I turned back to my work, and the only sounds in the kitchen were the gentle bubbling of the peroxide fighting off any infection (did it even work against the bacteria and God knows what else from wherever he came from?) and the rasp of the gauze against his skin. Somewhere above me a neighbor was blaring mariachi music, and as annoying as it might have been any other time, I was grateful for the faint backdrop of sound it provided. Years of words I hadn’t said and months of questions I wasn’t sure how to ask were building up in my mind and I knew something was going to burst out of my mouth if I didn’t relive some of the pressure. 

My focus returned to the work at hand, and I decided I could start with a relatively harmless question. 

“So, you’re not gonna tell me how you got this?” I probed, reaching for the tape and hiding a smile as he instinctively held the bandage on his wound so I could use both hands. Didn’t matter how long he was gone or where he went, we were still a pretty good team. 

A chuckle rumbled deep within his chest, to where I almost felt it rather than heard it. 

“Are you sure you want to know?”

I knew what he was asking. But, after all of my growing curiosity, I hesitated. We hadn’t really ever talked about his new… life and what it entailed. Surprisingly, I was able to handle the thought of dimensions and portals and all of that stuff easier than I’d thought. But to delve into it, to really begin to understand it all and relinquish my hold on the very base of my reality was daunting. I could handle it if it was held at arm’s length, but bringing it close and really looking at it… that was something else. 

“Yeah,” I said with a shrug, ripping the tape and carefully bridging the gap between his skin and the bandage. “I can handle the sparkly circle thing, so why not?”

He sniffed a laugh, causing his ribs to jut out just as I was placing my second piece of tape. “Sorry-” he pulled his torso back up- “uh, well, that is true, so…” he heaved a sigh, but I was ready for it this time and finished my taping before he moved. “So, I was in the Shadow Dimension-”

“The what?” I took my rag and with a clean corner moved to the cut over his eye. “I know, I’m sorry- we were doing so well-”

“You had such promise,” he teased, and I didn’t need to look at his eyes to know they were sparkling. “The Shadow Dimension is, well, just like it sounds- full of shadows. And, well, there was a group of light bandits- they steal the light in the dimension and really just make everything worse for everyone- and they were getting more powerful and threatening the ruler of the realm and it all got very complicated, but long story short, I was able to stop them without-” he glanced down at himself, “much of a scratch.”

During his monologue, I had wiped the dirt from his face and lightly scrubbed away the dried line of blood that had fortunately stopped in his eyebrow instead of his eye. My brain raced to catch up with everything he was saying, and I found myself grinning at his incredibly vague explanation. 

“Very impressive,” I said, now daubing his cut with the hydrogen-peroxide-soaked rag considerably gentler than I had his side. “But that still doesn’t tell me how you got these.” I gestured at the array of scrapes and bruises coloring his torso, including some older- looking wounds that I had just noticed. I also noticed with a mixture of surprise and disgust that a part of me was distinctly disappointed that I hadn’t been the one to clean those. 

His eyes slid over to meet mine, and then straight ahead.

“Well, that’s because they were the result of some… less-than-wise decisions on my part.”

Immediately the image of him tripping over something sharp popped up in my head, and my heart swelled with hope. 

“That wouldn’t include maybe… I don’t know... tripping over something, would it?”

He looked at me again, this time his eyes narrowed. “Oh, I know, you’d love that wouldn’t you?” he said, slipping further in the comfortable banter we used to have. “Sorry to disappoint you, but, no. It turns out that when a building collapses, escape routes that you meticulously set up can be destroyed, and walls can jut out at you, and in a panic you end up making a portal to get out.”

“That’s still a pretty funny image,” I admitted, smearing some Neosporin on the freshly cleaned cut. 

“Yes, well, I’m glad you can find some amusement in it,” he shot back. “But I guess you are kind of making up for it by patching me up.”

“Again.”

“Yes, again.”

I peeled the paper off the sides of the band-aid and carefully covered the cut. “And with that, you’re officially patched up,” I said, stepping back to look over my handiwork. Not a trace of blood or dirt to be found. 

Well, on _him_ , anyway. My counters, though…

Later. 

“After all of that, I actually only needed one band-aid,” he said, rolling his shoulders and gingerly twisting his torso from side to side. 

“Who would’ve thought- wait!” I said, reaching down and grabbing his hand. I held it up to my face and lifted up one finger. The small cut that he had originally showed me was still glaring angrily at me from his fingertip. “Two band-aids. Now, you really owe me.”

* * * * 

It didn’t take long to get the points across that, no, he wasn’t just going to sparky-circle away with his filthy laundry (of course I was going to wash it), and, no, he wasn’t just going to wait for it to be clean and dry and then leave, and, yes, he was going to take a shower and sleep on my couch for at least a little while before taking off to God knows where again. Whatever happened between us, regardless of how much of an asshole he could be, regardless of how he had long ago burned our bridge, I was not about to let him leave my apartment shaken, aching, and exhausted. 

Or with dirty clothes. 

“You might as well let me wash your pants, too,” I said, bundling up the surprisingly heavy pile of his shirt-tunic-strips-thing. “And your socks- dear God, I hope you have socks.”

“Oh, no, sorry, the Sanctum might hold most of the secrets of the universe, but we still haven’t found the answer to the age-old mystery of proper footwear,” he said, following me down the hallway to my laundry room. I flicked on the light and rolled my eyes. 

“Hey, you never know,” I said, my voice compressing as I bent over to toss his shirt into the washer. “Socks seem kinda low on the priorities list for- oh, what did they call you- _Sorcerer Supreme_?”

I heard him sigh wearily above me, and I looked up to find his eyes closed. “Yes, that is my title.”

“And I thought _Doctor Strange_ was bad enough,” I said with a laugh.

“I used to like it,” he admitted, faintly grinning, “until it became much too appropriate. _Sorcerer Supreme_ has been more… difficult to get used to.”

I looked up at the heaviness in his voice. “Are you okay with it?” I asked, a little bothered by how much the name seemed to weigh on him. 

“I don’t really have much of a choice,” he said simply, gazing at the bottle of detergent as if it was as interesting as, well, a bottle of generic detergent. “But, there are a lot of beings counting on me, so it’s only right that I use what I’ve been given to do what I need to.”

A couple of things hit me at once: first, his usage of the word _beings_ almost caused me to laugh, but then I realized with a slight shiver that it was far more accurate and shoved the flash of existential crisis down in my brain. Secondly, the fact that his explanation had said nothing at all about what _he_ wanted or desired or how it affected his career- I honestly couldn’t think of a time when I’d heard him discuss such things in such a selfless and matter-of-fact way. The man standing in my laundry room shirtless, bruised, and possibly sockless was not the man I had known at the hospital. I was even pretty sure he wasn’t even the man I had dated and loved. That man was gone.

That man had died in a car accident. 

“That’s awfully heroic of you to say,” I said as I stood, only slightly teasing. 

He looked back at me, his expression a mix of weariness and smugness.

“What can I say? I’m the Sorcerer Supreme.” 

Normally, a hint of arrogance would have been reassuring. But the effort I saw in his eyes to put it there worried me. Even with all of his new knowledge and powers, he was still just a human, just a man. How much would he be forced to carry? How much could he carry? 

I only hoped that it wouldn’t take him breaking to find out. 

“Come on,” I said, maneuvering past him in the small space and into the hallway. “Let’s get you to the shower.”

His footsteps were a familiar sound as he followed me out of the laundry room.

“Let me guess, you just cleaned that, too?” 

His voice filled the hall behind me, and I sighed. 

“No, but now you’re giving me an excellent reason.”

I flipped on the lightswitch, very grateful that I had taken the initiative to tidy things up that morning. “I had it replaced,” I said, sliding the curtain to the side. “Now the faucet doesn’t take a brain surgeon to operate and the water pressure is _out of this world_.”

I flashed him a dopey grin and he squeezed his eyes shut as if in pain. “I think- I think I just died a little-”

“-then just do that spirit thing and we’ll get you back-”

“-the Shadow Dimension was worse than those puns-”

“-it’ll _wash_ away any _shadow_ of a doubt in your mind-”

“-really, I think I need a band-aid for my brain- is this payback for getting your kitchen dirty?”

I smirked at him as I stepped out of the bathroom and into my bedroom. “No, I haven’t thought of that, yet.” I dug around in one of my drawers and pulled out an old t-shirt and pair of sweats he had left one of the last times he had been over. His scent had long faded, but I still liked to wear them occasionally for comfort purposes. “Surely you have a spell for something like that, right?”

I crossed back into the bathroom in time to see him shaking his head with a chuckle. 

“Not exactly, no.”

“Pity,” I said. “That could have eased your retribution. Anyway, I’ll leave these for you.” I dropped the pile of clothes on the bathroom counter and hoped he didn’t think too hard about why they were there. I turned to walk away, but I heard him hesitate in reaching for them. 

“You kept these?”

I paused in the doorway and squeezed my eyes shut. I had two choices- I could stammer out a lie, or be honest. Turning back around, I decided to go somewhere in the middle. 

“Oh, yeah, I just… never got around to getting rid of them.”

It came out as casually as I hoped, and I knew the expression on my face was convincing. He stared at me a moment, studying me with slightly narrowed eyes. I didn’t want to know what he was thinking- especially because the way his eyes slightly softened was making me want to melt. 

“I see.” He looked down at the pile thoughtfully. “Guess it came in handy.”

“Yeah, who would’ve thought?” I muttered as I turned back to the hallway. “You can use the towels on the rack- I just washed them,” I called over my shoulder as I all but ran down the hallway. 

The snap of the door closing was his only reply, and I breathed a heavy sigh when I got to my bedroom. It was all too familiar- the looks, the quips, the way he avoided the floorboards that creaked in the hall, the way his silhouette filled the doorway. Warm, comfortable, fluttery things were trying to creep into my stomach and there was no way in hell I was going to let them. I didn’t have the time, energy, or emotional capacity to even begin to delve into the ruins of our relationship, and just because he was actually kind of considerate for once and aware of people other than himself and acting all heroic and noble and we were getting along did _not_ mean-

Nope. 

Time to make his bed. 

On the couch. 

I only had one clean sheet, but the pillowcases and blankets would be enough. The make-shift bed only took me about five minutes, and I was just taking a step back to survey my work when I heard the sound of the bathroom door open behind me. I froze, knowing exactly how much I shouldn’t turn around. The sight of him coming out of the bathroom with his hair all wet and disheveled and in his old sleep clothes would be extremely… counterproductive. Not that I was concerned or anything, I just really didn’t need the distraction. 

Instead, I waited for him to pad across the carpet before I turned, carefully avoiding his face or his eyes or just about any part of him, for that matter. 

“There are some snacks in the pantry and some pizza in the fridge, if you get hungry. I can throw your clothes in the dryer in the morning before I leave for work,” I said, pretending to be busy folding a couple extra blankets on the arm of the couch. “I’ve got an early shift, but you can stay as long as you need.”

Movement out of the corner of my eye snapped my attention to the kitchen, but I relaxed when I saw that it was only the cloak drifting closer to where Stephen was sleeping. 

_Only the cloak_. What a world to live in. 

I rolled my eyes slightly at the fact that I had just dismissed a magic floating cloak and turned back to Stephen to find him staring straight at me. I tried to avert my eyes, but I just couldn’t.

“Christine,” he said softly, something earnest and gentle shining in his eyes. “Thank you.”

The worn gray shirt. The loose black sweats. The wet hair sticking up all over his head. The clean, trimmed beard. The slightly trembling hands. The small, genuine smile. The relaxed posture. The pure, authentic appreciation glowing in his blue-green eyes. 

My inner voice of reason spluttered into silence, and the warm fluttery things erupted in my stomach unchecked. 

_God. I’m so screwed_.

“O-of course,” I stammered, fleeing his… everything and darting into the kitchen. I snapped off the lights and headed for the hallway when my traitorous feet stopped. Slowly I turned around, like I was fighting paralysis, and looked in the general direction of his head. 

“Good night, Stephen.”

I didn’t even wait for his low reply to rumble pleasantly through my brain before flipping the hallway light off and disappearing into its blush-concealing darkness. 

* * * * 

The sound of a muffled cry shot through my brain and I jolted awake with a gasp. Glancing at my clock, I saw that it was 2:17 am, and I tossed the sheets off me as the sound continued. I recognized it immediately, and was surprised it hadn’t happened sooner. Even a man of his disposition couldn’t hold off PTSD for long. 

My feet were quiet as they led me across the hardwood, and I could distinctly hear the sound of movement coming from the living room. And it was getting more violent. Not a great sign.

Upon entering the living room, I found Stephen tangled up in his blanket, tossing around on the couch. He was panting as if he was running a marathon, and I thought for a moment that the yelling was over. Then a short, low cry burst through his lips. I’d never heard him make a sound like that.   
It terrified me. 

Time to intervene.

“Stephen,” I called gently, walking to the couch and bending down. “Stephen!”

His face was twisted as if in agony, and the panting didn’t stop. My stomach churned. What the hell was he seeing?

“Stephen!” I said louder, shaking his shoulder. “Stephen, wake up!”

A gasp ripped through the room and his eyes flew open. Startled, I jumped back, watching as his eyes darted around frantically, seeing nothing. I could tell he had no idea where he was. 

“Stephen,” I said softly, hesitantly leaning in again.

He jumped at the sound of my voice and whipped his head over to find me. His eyes were wide and crazed, and he searched my face for several seconds before the Stephen I knew returned.

With a heavy sigh he slowly sat up and buried his face in his hands. 

“I’m sorry, Christine,” he said in a muffled groan behind his fingers. 

I just stared at him- at his trembling hands, at his tousled hair (things I had found so… problematic just a few hours before), at his slumped shoulders, his shaking back… at his _weakness_. Even after his surgeries, he’d still been angry and driven, desperate to regain his status by whatever means possible. The fire had been there, smoldering beneath his sorrow and his shame but it had been there. 

The man before me was like an old candle- charred around the edges of where a flame used to burn. How bad was it that one nightmare could completely extinguish his-

Then something else hit me.

He didn’t seem surprised by it at all. 

“How often does this happen?” I asked in a voice barely more than a whisper. I was torn on whether or not I wanted to know the answer. 

His fingers slid up his face to stick in his hair and he sighed again. He turned to look at me, a weary grin trying to fit itself on his face.

“Never.”

Instead of rolling my eyes at his bluff, I internally winced at the shadows under his eyes, noting how much of the spark was gone. 

I had hoped it wasn’t the case, I had hoped it wouldn’t have to break him. But looking at the dramatic change that only a few hours of sleep had brought, it was undeniable. 

Whatever this weird new life was that he was living, it was breaking him. 

And I could not just stand by and watch it happen. 

An idea that was as bold as it was stupid flew into my head, and before I could think twice, my body was in motion. 

“Come on.” 

I stood up and took a step back to give him room. 

His failed grin faded into confusion. “What?”

“You’ve always been alone, right?” I asked. “Let’s run an experiment. Let’s see if it happens when you're not alone.” 

He gaped at me, his eyes wide and bewildered as he tried to reason through my offer. 

“It’s worth a shot- and, the upside is that we _both_ might sleep better.”

He continued to stare at me, ignoring my teasing jab and trying to figure out what the hell I was doing. He knew he’d successfully- _very_ successfully- burned our particular bridge, so he knew that it wasn’t that kind of an invitation. But there I was, standing there waiting for him to come to bed with me. 

… and it also might have been extremely fun watching the wheels frantically turn in his head for once. 

“Christine, you don’t have to do this-“

"Stephen.”

I had long learned that arguing with him would get nowhere, so I simply put my foot down. There was no room for arguing or negotiating.

He sighed in acquiescence, and pushed the blankets off of him. With a groan he stood to his feet, his tall form abruptly towering over me. Snatching his pillow off the couch, he followed me to my bedroom. 

Without looking at him, I crawled in on what was now my side of the bed, the bravado and confidence from seconds earlier fading with every second. I tried desperately to keep my heart from stuttering when he pulled the sheets back and slid underneath them, his weight shifting the mattress.

I failed.

“I like the new mattress.”

His voice was almost back to normal, but I didn’t trust it. 

“I definitely don’t miss the springs,” I offered lamely. 

We didn’t say anything else, but I knew neither of us were quite ready for sleep yet. What redness had been on my face fled at the thought of the very real, very traumatizing dangers that he’d faced. All it took was remembering the sounds of his cries and I fought a shiver. I never wanted to hear those sounds again, or see him reduced to a cowering shadow of his usual self. 

It was about that time that I became aware of tremors softly disturbing the solidity of my mattress. 

“You’re still shaking.”

Instead of the smart-ass answer I was expecting, I got silence. 

Rolling over quickly, I found him staring at the ceiling, his brow furrowed. His hands were clenching the top of the sheets in a white-knuckled grip. If it had been any warmer, he probably would have been sweating. 

_Oh, shit_. 

“Hey,” I breathed, sliding closer to him. “It’s okay.” 

When he didn’t break eye contact with the ceiling, I continued, “Hey. Stephen. Look at me.”

At that, his eyes finally left the ceiling and he shifted to look at me. Fear was threatening to take control of his eyes, and a jolt of panic surged through me. Exhaustion was one thing, but fear? I’d never seen him like this- not even when he was floating outside of his basically dead body. 

“Hey.” 

Gently I brought a hand up to his cheek and pulled him toward me, causing him to roll over onto his side. I closed in the space between us till there were only a couple of inches separating us and I could look directly into his eyes. “It’s over, okay? It’s over. Whatever you saw, whatever is haunting you, it can’t get you here- it’s over. You can relax. You can sleep. Okay?”

I watched with bated breath as he half-believed me, which was fair because _I_ only half-believed me. I didn't have a freaking clue what he had seen, and it might not be over. But for right now, it was. He was going to get some sleep if I had to stay up and talk him to sleep myself. 

After a few seconds of deliberating, he nodded, not really in a gesture of absolution but more of putting it on the backburner. Life began to leak back into his eyes, and they started to glitter.

Yes, even in the darkness. 

“There you go,” I whispered, sliding my hand down to rest on his shoulder. “Now try to get some sleep, okay? If you wake me up again, I’ll punch you,” I added with a grin, and he grinned back. His hand felt around until it wrapped around mine, warmth enveloping my skin like a warm summer day. 

However, not even the sun could compete with the warmth emanating from his grin and for the second time that night I was on the receiving end of his gratitude. 

“Thank you.”

* * * * 

Gentle shaking roused me from sleep, and I jolted slightly. I didn’t remember falling asleep, but the soft touch of pink coloring my room indicated that it had been at least a few hours since I’d last had my eyes open. Looking over, I found that the shaking was caused by Stephen very, very, carefully crawling back in bed from what I could only assume was a trip to the bathroom. I restrained a giggle as I watched him slide under the covers inch by inch as he struggled not to wake me. However, once he sent a glance my way to make sure his efforts were working, I almost laughed out loud at the panic that flashed across his face when he found me watching him. 

He froze just before his head was able to rest on the pillow, staring at me with wide, sleepy eyes that held a completely different kind of fear than what I saw earlier.

“Um…” he began, unable to break away from my gaze. “Are you… are you going to punch me?”

In spite of myself, a grin spread across my face. 

“Thinkin’ about it.”

“Well,” he continued softly, his voice low and raspy as he called my bluff and settled in. “I believe that would require you to move, and if I’m not mistaken, you look quite comfortable.” He grinned at how bundled up I was and proceeded to snuggle deeper within the blankets.

“Some things are worth the sacrifice,” I replied loftily, quickly withdrawing my hand from the shelter of the covers in a weak attempt to hit him. With lightning quickness, his hand caught mine, and as I struggled I couldn’t help but giggle at the futility of it. He created portals with his _hands_. I wasn’t going to overpower him even if I _did_ want to hit him. 

But that didn’t stop me from trying _just_ a little bit. 

My other hand flew out from under the covers, but he intercepted it as if he had been waiting for it. Who knows, he probably had been. What I knew he wasn’t expecting, however, was my foot to fly against his shin while he was occupied with my hands.

“Ouch! What the-“

An extremely girly giggle bubbled out of my mouth as I took advantage of his distraction and wrestled my hands free. He didn’t let them get far, however. Just as I was winding up to smack him, he rolled over and in a flash pinned my hands down above my head. 

His hands sank with mine into the softness of my pillow, and I watched his eyes realize what his body had done. I could feel his heart pounding against my chest and I suddenly couldn’t breathe, held captive by both his hands and his eyes. He was as uncertain as I was, and more than ready to roll off of me and forget it ever happened. After all, the embers of our burned bridge had cooled long ago.

But something in me sparked, and my eyes gave him no such escape. With a feeling intensely similar to jumping out of an airplane, I realized at that moment that our little experiment was about to be terribly, _terribly_ corrupted.

And I just couldn’t bring myself to care. 

Very slowly, he lowered his head and with one last glance to ensure he could proceed, he brought his lips to mine. 

_God_.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!


End file.
